Getty Scenes from the Afghanistan airport.
Dramatic videos captured chaos and death at the Afghanistan airport in Kabul as stowaways fell off a military transport plane and five people ended up dead as people tried to flee the Taliban takeover.
You can watch video of the stowaways falling and from the airport throughout this article, but be aware that some of the videos are disturbing. As the plane takes off, you can see the tiny black dots of bodies fall from it.
Here is a video of the stowaways falling off the plane.
Three stowaways fall to their deaths from plane and five others are killed at airport.. t.co/hKDZkJJDOB
Other dramatic videos also emerged showing the chaos at the airport.
“This is, perhaps, one of the saddest images I’ve seen from #Afghanistan. A people who are desperate and abandoned. No aid agencies, no UN, no government. Nothing,” Nicola Careem, of the BBC, wrote on Twitter.
Here’s what you need to know:
Five People Died at the Airport During the Chaos
Panic in Kabul: Stowaways ‘fall to their deaths from plane’ and five others are killed at airport as increasingly desperate Afghans try to SURVIVE!
Who is to blame?
Read the deal #Trump made with the Taliban then decide!
Afghanistan is burning & their people need help!
According to Reuters, five people died at the Kabul airport in addition to the stowaways as Afghan people tried desperately to flee the Taliban, which seized control of the city, as the president fled the country.
People were recorded running alongside a military plane.
Desperate scenes at Kabul airport as Afghans try to flee the Taliban
One video shows people hanging desperately on to a U.S. military plane as it attempted to leave the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. There were so many people clinging to planes and crowding the airport that the U.S. military had to temporarily stop evacuations there, Reuters reported. Other video shows people crowding the tarmac.
Footage shows people crowding the airport tarmac in Kabul after the Taliban entered the Afghan capital. t.co/zyaDykV2Ey
According to Reuters, it’s unclear whether the people died after being shot or from a stampede, and a U.S. official said American troops “fired in the air” because people were trying to climb on a military plane that was supposed to evacuate diplomats and embassy staff out of Kabul.
However, the Wall Street Journal reported that two people shot at the airport by U.S. troops were “two armed men” who approached the troops. Three other bloody bodies were seen lying near a terminal, according to WSJ.
U.S. military dogs were evacuated at the airport, video showed.
U.S. military dogs in Kabul evacuated from the city’s airport among other officials as Taliban takes control of Afghanistan. t.co/ggx5Xgk0lG
CNBC reported that most people at the airport would likely be out of luck. “If you don’t have a visa or passport, which the majority of Afghans don’t, you’re not going,” an analyst there told CNBC.
Video Showed People Running After a Plane
Crowds of people desperate to escape Afghanistan stormed Kabul’s international airport, rushing onto the tarmac.
People clung to the sides of military planes, even as one taxied down the runway, in a bid to flee as the Taliban takes control.
t.co/BMfaEkDykr
“Crowds of people desperate to escape Afghanistan stormed Kabul’s international airport, rushing onto the tarmac,” the New York Times wrote with the above video.
“People clung to the sides of military planes, even as one taxied down the runway, in a bid to flee as the Taliban takes control.”
Daily Mail reported that three stowaways plunged to their deaths from an United States Air Force transport plane, bringing the death toll at the airport to eight. Daily Mail reported that bodies believed to be of the stowaways were recovered from a nearby Kabul roof.
More video showed people fleeing outside the airport as gunfire erupted.
#Kabul: Another video emerges from this morning outside Kabul airport. Gunfire can be heard too.
One airport video showed a helicopter doing crowd control.
An Apache appears to be doing crowd control to clear the runway for a C-17 military transport aircraft at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, as hundreds of people are trying to get on flights out of Afghanistan.
On the morning of August 16, 2021, the chaos at the airport continued.
The U.S. Department of Defense wrote in a statement, “At present we are completing a series of steps to secure the Hamid Karzai International Airport to enable the safe departure of U.S. and allied personnel from Afghanistan via civilian and military flights. Over the next 48 hours, we will have expanded our security presence to nearly 6,000 troops, with a mission focused solely on facilitating these efforts and will be taking over air traffic control. Tomorrow and over the coming days, we will be transferring out of the country thousands of American citizens who have been resident in Afghanistan, as well as locally employed staff of the U.S. mission in Kabul and their families and other particularly vulnerable Afghan nationals. And we will accelerate the evacuation of thousands of Afghans eligible for U.S. Special Immigrant Visas, nearly 2,000 of whom have already arrived in the United States over the past two weeks. For all categories, Afghans who have cleared security screening will continue to be transferred directly to the United States. And we will find additional locations for those yet to be screened.”